President McCarthy Opens Impeachment Inquiry Against President Biden: NPR

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy speaks to reporters outside his Capitol office Tuesday.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

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Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy speaks to reporters outside his Capitol office Tuesday.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday that the House will open an impeachment inquiry against President Biden.

“I am directing our House committees to initiate a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden,” he said. “This next logical step will give our committees full power to gather all the facts and all the answers” ​​desired by the American people.

This decision comes in a context of increasing pressure exerted on the Republican by the right wing of his party. He said in late July that if federal agencies did not turn over documents requested by the committees, it would “rise to the level” of an impeachment inquiry, but stressed that he was still waiting for the committees to recommend action.

A White House spokesperson called McCarthy’s decision “extreme politics at its worst.” Ian Sams said on open the investigation, as he had previously promised to do.

McCarthy did not respond to any questions after his announcement. He recently told Breitbart that any impeachment inquiry “would take place through a vote in the People’s House and not through the statement of a single person.”

But it’s unclear whether a formal resolution would get the necessary votes. Republicans hold a narrow majority in the House and he can only afford to lose four votes on a measure that is unlikely to get support from Democrats. Several politically vulnerable moderate Republicans, like Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., have been skeptical of an impeachment inquiry.

Buck said this weekend on MSNBC that even if House committees report information about Biden’s son Hunter, it’s clear that impeachment cannot pass through the Senate.

“There is not a strong connection at this point between the evidence on Hunter Biden and any evidence linking the president,” Buck said. “So I’m focusing more on the issues that I think Americans care deeply about.”

House Republicans have uncovered no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. Some allege corruption in his son Hunter’s business dealings when Biden was vice president. But the chairmen of the House committees pushing for impeachment have produced no evidence that the president received any financial benefit.

Several GOP moderates, like Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., and Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., have said publicly that they aren’t there yet and need to see evidence additional information to support their case for any article of impeachment. . The speaker told Breitbart earlier this month that he would not move forward without a floor vote, saying, “If we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it will be done through a vote in the House of the People and not by a declaration of any person.”

Trump recently took to his social media platform with a message to House Republicans: “Either IMPEACH the BUM or fade into oblivion.” »

McCarthy said Biden lied “to the American people about his own knowledge of his family’s foreign business dealings.”

He said witnesses said Biden participated in multiple phone calls and had multiple interactions, and that “nearly $20 million in payments were made to Biden family members and associates through various front companies.

“Biden used his official office to coordinate with Hunter Biden’s business partners over Hunter’s role in Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company,” McCarthy said, adding: “It appears the president’s family was offered special treatment by Biden’s own administration, treatment that is not.” otherwise, they would have been received if they were not related to the president. These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption that warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives.

McCarthy did not answer questions, nor did he indicate whether there would be an actual vote to authorize the investigation, or whether the actions he ordered the committees to take were different from what they are already doing.

This story will be updated.